


Lip Service

by thisiswhatthewatergaveme



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, And Sif!, And The Crowd Goes Wild, Angst, Bad Attempts At Making Amends, Bandmates Warriors Three, Cameos, Difficult Histories, Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Raised Together, Paparazzi, Pop Star Thor, Sharing a Room, Sorry! I'm American, Stereotypical Rock Star Behavior (But More Wholesome), Tour Bus, bodyguard Loki, none of the named characters tho, not really siblings, tenuous grasp of geography
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2020-10-26 19:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswhatthewatergaveme/pseuds/thisiswhatthewatergaveme
Summary: Thor has a promising music career and a decent schedule for his first U.S. tour. He also has a stalker sending him threatening letters. When his new label requires his use of a bodyguard, the last person he expects to see is Loki, briefly fostered by his parents in high school until a cruel prank sent both their lives down different tracks. But Loki is--according to himself--the best in the business, and Thor is--according to Heimdall--not in a position to make demands.That doesn't mean he has to make things easy for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marvel Trumps Hate! More chapters imminent. More later. Thanks for reading!

Thor doesn’t say _no_ the way Heimdall expects him to. He doesn’t throw a fit, storm out of the room, throw something—he keeps things simple.

He smiles, and says, as if Heimdall’s told a joke, “Absolutely not, thanks.” And then goes back to tuning his guitar.

“Thor,” Heimdall says carefully, and tries not to think about the man just outside the dressing room doors. The man the label has already hired, for all that Heimdall’s giving Thor’s ego the benefit of lip service—easier to ask forgiveness, yes, but easier still to _pretend _you’ve asked for permission, so that when your future rock god client, who pretends he has nothing in common with the disco divas of old, throws the kind of tantrum that means that you have to quietly pay off the hotel/cruise line/venue/bar/insert-future-locations-of-disasters-here, you can pretend he owes you his cooperation and everything can continue according to the plan that the _both of you, together _put together for his career, for all that he likes to pretend otherwise.

But Heimdall will play the dictator. He will play whatever he needs to, to a) keep his idiot of a client safe and b) give himself the hope that, one day, he’ll be able to take a vacation. A good one. A long one. Bottomless mai-tais on a beach somewhere, so far away he can forget, for a moment, the lights, the noise—

“As if I’d need someone else to protect me,” Thor chuckles.

The _arrogance_.

“Of course,” Heimdall says calmly, taking a seat next to Thor on the long chaise he’s sat on. This dressing room is one of the nicer ones they’ve been in this year. The mirrors along the walls are clean and well lit; the carpet is vacuumed and the seating options are comfortable. The only clutter in the room is the clutter they’ve brought with them. There are hair products over the vanity surface, instrument cases along one wall, and crumpled up takeout bags on the coffee table, the mark of days on the road. “Of course,” Heimdall says again, and he definitely not stalling. “It’s not like your muscles are vanity muscles. Sure, you’ve built them up lifting more than, say, in self-defense classes, but sure. Probably means you’ll have to cut back on the take-out, though. Good luck with that.”

Thor frowns. “Are you calling me fat?”

“I’m calling you soft.”

“This conversation is over,” Thor says. He says it like a warning shot. Heimdall’s known Thor since he was a teenager. He’s seen him grow into a cocky asshole, but he’s also seen him grow into someone who knows when they need a moment, who knows when they need to walk away. This, he thinks, is that moment for Thor. He looks warily back at Heimdall only once before turning his attention to his tuning. But he turns the tuning key too far, and the tone of the resulting twang is enough to get both of their teeth on edge.

“What are you going to do if someone rushes you when you have your guitar strapped across you?” Heimdall asks. Another horrible twang. Thor isn’t looking at him. “What if it’s a fan, and you do defend yourself; how does that look, you decking someone who’s paid to see you?” Another twang. He’s getting the string closer to where it needs to be, now, but the key is something indistinguishable. Heimdall winces, but he has to get his point home. “You think they’ll love you then?”

The sound the guitar is making is cut off when Thor grips it by the neck, so hard that for a moment, Heimdall fools himself into thinking Thor has the thing creaking. But he knows Thor better than that; the last thing he’d ever do, even in a fit of passion, is damage his axe.

“Heimdall,” he says, through gritted teeth. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I—”

“Honestly,” the man from the company says, stepping into the door frame, completely ignoring the agreed-upon procedure. “How hard can it be to tell him? He isn’t a child. Only a…musician.” 

Heimdall closes his eyes in something like a prayer for patience.

“What the fuck,” Thor says, polite as ever.

“Loki,” he says, “or Mr. Laufeyson. Whichever you prefer.”

A vacation, Heimdall tells himself. One day. Bottomless Mai Tais. Hell, a bottomless beach. He deserves it.

“What the fuck,” Thor says again.

“Loki,” Heimdall says, “is here to solve the problem we’ve been discussing.”

“You mean the problem you _blindsided _me with,” Thor snaps. “And anyway—he’s—I’m—look at him! You think he’s stronger than me?” Thor eyes Loki—Loki in his black on black on black suit, his long hair slicked back from his high forehead. Loki who looks more like a VIP guest than a bodyguard.

“How many bodyguards have you seen?” Heimdall asks, but it’s not like Thor is wrong—Heimdall doesn’t think Loki looks stronger than Thor, but he also isn’t convinced strength is the only thing they need. Thor’s strong; he’s still lacking in plenty of areas.

“Would a demonstration make you feel better?” Loki asks, sounding bored. He closes the door behind himself with the toe of his shoe. “Punch me.” His hands are in his pockets. It’s all very dramatic, and Heimdall is, for the first time this evening, beginning to think he might have made a mistake.

Thor rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to bruise that pretty face. I’ll let the door do that on your way out.”

“I’ve already been paid,” Loki says with a shrug. “If I’m to leave, you might as well get your shot in; how else will you ever know for sure?”

“Know what?”

“How far I outmatch you.”

And, yes, Heimdall has noticed Thor’s budding maturity, how he thinks before he speaks these days at least one time out of ten, how he works to respond with words instead of violence, how hard he’s worked to bring his good humor back, how kind he tries to be, most days.

But Loki smiles a smile that is entirely at Thor’s own expense, and, well.

He’s still _Thor_.

He stands. Thor’s shoulders are broader than Loki’s. They’re almost of a height, but he holds his bulk differently, his head farther back, his muscles developed in a way that makes them look like they’re coiled or preparing to coil, every step bracing him to the ground in a way that leaves them, and him, ready for flight or violence, potential energy a constant buzz beneath his skin.

Loki is a quiet study in contrast, lean but not slight, held still in a way that hints at the same sort of energy. But where Thor’s is visible and exposed like a live wire, Loki’s is locked and warded so far away that Heimdall thinks it might make him more dangerous. He does not know how, but he knows that Loki is going to best Thor, because he knows that Thor is only going to see the stillness and mistake it for passivity. But there’s nothing passive about Loki; he’s straight-backed as still grass, but there’s a snake there, waiting for one wrong and naked step.

“Should we count down?” Thor asks. He doesn’t like being made a fool of. More’s the pity for whatever’s going to happen next. Heimdall sighs and picks Thor’s guitar up from where he’s propped it against the couch, and goes through the motions of righting Thor’s tuning. It won’t take nearly long enough.

“Do you think most people coming to attack you will announce themselves? Or—”

Heimdall misses the swing, because his eyes are down, but he does look up in time to see Thor sailing through the air on his back, flipped over with a quickness that even Heimdall hadn’t anticipated. He can’t help it—he laughs.

“You cheated,” Thor wheezes from the floor, visibly winded, his cheeks and pitiable shade of red.

“I did not,” Loki says. “I couldn’t have. How was I supposed to know that you were going to hit me with your right hand? Or project it with your shoulder placement? Or allow me ample time to prepare for it, both by situating your hips a little to the right, and, of course, by announcing that you were planning on_ counting down_.” Loki drops down into a squat; Heimdall thinks he’s about to help Thor up, but he holds up three fingers instead. “Three,” he deadpans, “two…” At _one_, he mouths it, and flicks Thor on the forehead with his single raised finger. “And it’s a hit!”

“You’re fired,” Thor says.

“No time,” Heimdall says happily. “You’re on in ten.”


	2. Chapter 2

That night’s show is electric.

It’s the beauty of playing a bigger venue. That, and having people actually show up to the shows. Thor remembers playing student bars fondly, half the room half interested in you, the other half drinking and talking and laughing and dealing with the nuisance that was the hired entertainment. But it made him brave, he thinks, learning not to look for positive feedback from a crowd, and learning that the bubble he made on the stage, himself and his music, that was for him. He was inviting the audience in, not the other way around. Their attention was a gift, but not a necessary one. It taught him focus; it taught him to listen to himself.

But playing a bigger venue, with people in the audience who considered themselves fans, who already knew his name and the sound of his music, who were there because they wanted to be, who sought him out—that was something different. Special. There were stakes now, and on days when he forgot that, all he needed was this again, himself in front of a crowd that was looking at him, trying to _see _him, and it all snapped back into place.

"Thank you, Denver,” he says, breathless and sweaty and breathing in the smell of burning from the lights. “It’s been incredible.” He feels so incredibly full; for a moment, he stands up there, smiling like an idiot, forgetting to move. There’s a girl two rows back who’s crying, and looks absolutely ascendant. He feels that. He understands that. He hopes he sees her in one of these crowds again. “Thank you so much,” he says, and doesn’t know how to explain just how much he means it.

And then he has to go.

Usually, there’s a stage-high that carries him through backstage, through changing out of his stage-Thor makeup and posturing back to regular-Thor, through the ride back to his hotel, and well into next week. But when he gets back to his dressing room, it’s like a cold splash of water, and he sobers immediately. Because Loki’s still there, sat in Thor’s spot on the red chaise, flipping through an old issue of Rolling Stone.

“All done, are we,” he says, without looking up from his page, and Thor feels an uncharacteristic bolt of absolute fury race through him, so fast that he has the magazine in his hand before he realizes it, throwing it up against the mirrors before he can stop himself.

And the thing is, that isn’t Thor. He knows that he can be impulsive, impetuous, and he knows that his temper often (always) gets the best of him.

But no one else in the world turns him into this: thoughtless, angry, and so ready for damage at his own hands that he’s almost hungry for it.

“Get out,” Thor says, his voice deeper than he’s ever heard it. Husky from the show, he tells himself. Too many runs, too much straining.

“Now why on earth would I do that?” Loki asks, blinking at him slowly. To provoke him, he’s sure. “I have a job to do.”

“You do have a job,” Thor says, “tonight. That you can do from outside the dressing room. Tomorrow, you won’t.”

"You really are planning on having me sacked, aren’t you?” Loki doesn’t look worried. If anything, he looks amused when he rises, toe to toe with Thor for a moment before he steps away, heading, thankfully, for the door. “I never thought you’d be one for revenge.”

“Because you know me so well,” Thor spits, and then stops himself from saying anything worse. Anything more transparent. He could kick himself; this was always Loki’s game, needling him, purposefully or not, until he shows him an open nerve. And then cutting it.

Loki stops at the door. Places his forearm against it. Turns enough that Thor knows he has his attention. As if he could possibly read it as anything else.

Loki’s always been tall, but strength looks good on him. His cheeks have always been just on the gaunt side of pronounced, his nose that sharp, but Thor thinks, for a moment, that Loki might have changed, too. It’s the lack of the sneer around his mouth, maybe, but the lines there indicate it took a long time for that habit to change. It might be the pause for thought before poisonous words.

"Why are you here, Loki?”

Loki takes a breath before he turns around. It fills his chest out. Makes him look like he’s readying for truth. It’s a little transparent, for him.

“Heimdall says you have a stalker,” he says. “With your popularity growing in a way that I’m sure even _you _have to recognize—”

“The security company,” Thor says. “Surely they can send anyone else—”

Loki cuts him off with a hand and a twitch in his jaw. “No one else has the experience I do.”

“Then we go with a different company.”

“_No one _else.”

Thor has to laugh. “How convenient for you. Tell me, Loki: are we sure it wasn’t you writing those letters, just to reinsert yourself in my life? You always were obsessed with me.”

Now Thor has him. His tells haven’t changed—his nostrils flare when he gathers himself, furious that Thor is winning whatever this argument is. “A petty childhood prank isn’t a good enough reason for you to willfully put your safety at risk.”

“A prank,” Thor repeats. Loki pales.

To his credit, he stands tall. “Yes.”

“You got me barred from competition.”

“You know that wasn’t my intention.”

“I was also banned from the gym, do you remember that?”

“Obviously, finding a different hobby did _not_ lead to your suffering.”

“I was bound for a scholarship—”

“_Please_, you were never going to college—”

“You broke _both _my parents’ hearts—”

“At least they believed you,” Loki says quietly, and for a moment, Thor remembers his face when he left their house for the last time. How he’d looked at Thor as if willing him to understand something, Thor who couldn’t even fathom what he’d done, why he’d done it, much less consider forgiving him.

Thor is older and wiser, but he’s never really understood the point of forgiveness when all the other party seems good for is inflicting damage. He’s close enough to Loki to reach past him to open the door, and to Loki’s credit, he moves when Thor herds him, right outside the door but still close enough that it makes his hair flutter when Thor swings it closed.

“Start job hunting,” Thor says through it, “and goodnight.”

Loki isn’t wrong—if he hadn’t gotten Thor kicked off the wrestling team, he’d never have picked up his mother’s old guitar; if he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t be here.

But if Loki hadn’t come back, he wouldn’t have ruined Thor’s night, so there’s always that. Thor takes another long drink from the tiny bottle of tequila from his minibar and considers all the reasons he was much, much happier with small bars and just the occasional persistent woman at a bar to worry about. Now he might have concert space and a four-star hotel budget, but he also has a stalker and a Loki, and when he voices this, he doesn’t get sympathy like he thinks he should, but “What’s a Loki?” from Volstagg, his rhythm guitarist, and, “No, he’s saying ‘unlucky,’” from Fandral, his keyboardist.

“You’ve been moping all night,” Sif says when all he does is groan in response to both of them. “I told you you shouldn’t have picked the tequila.”

“It’s not the tequila’s fault,” Thor says petulantly, and throws back the rest of the little bottle.

He’s happy, he tells himself, here in this oversized hotel room, his friends and bandmates spread around the couch, the chair, the floor, and beside him on the bed, he realizes, when Sif lays over him to grab herself a little bottle from where he’s arranged the good ones along his nightstand. He’s happy and successful, doing something that he loves that _other _people _also _love, and there’s no point in ‘what ifs,’ because there’s no such thing as time travel, and Loki has always been the worst, and the only difference between his usual being-the-worst-ness and what’s just happened here is proximity, and once Thor has him fired, he’ll be far, far away, and that will be that.

“I think he’s lost the plot,” Hogun says.

There’s a knock at the door. “If it’s Loki, I need you to hit him,” Thor says to Sif. “He is too fast for me, but you, also, are fast.”

“Yeah,” Sif tells to Hogun, with a sigh. “He absolutely has.” She gets the door.

It’s Heimdall, because of course it is.

“The betrayer!” Thor roars, swinging himself up to sitting, only to fall back down immediately when the tequila hits him in the brain.

“It’s two a.m. and we leave at six,” Heimdall says. “You can definitely sleep on the bus, but you might want to cut the drinking off here. It’s a bumpy road. Lots of hills, lots of curves.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Thor says to the ceiling. “God forbid you offer the slightest bit of sympathy.”

“What is he talking about?”

“Apparently someone called Loki, _or _something unlucky, who he hates because of something mysterious that happened a long time ago, was ‘escorted back into his life like a bat regurgitated from the depths of hell,’ and it was your fault,” Hogun says, air quotes and all.

“Is this because he flipped you?” Heimdall asks. “Because that was mostly your fault.”

“He flipped Thor? Like, over?” Sif asks, far too cheerfully.

“_No_,” Thor says. “I mean—yes, he did flip me, and it was only because I didn’t—shut up. I’m not mad because of that. I’m _mad _that you didn’t talk to me. I’m mad because it’s _Loki_, who already did his damnedest to ruin my life. And here he is, back again. Whose fault is that, hm?”

“I didn’t know you knew him. If that’s the issue, we can look for someone else.”

“Oh,” Thor says miserably. “If that’s all it takes. Can someone pass me a trash can.”

“Right, that’s it for me,” Heimdall says. “Goodnight, miscreants.”

Everyone salutes him but Sif, who’s kind enough to toss the trashcan into Thor’s reach. He doesn’t have to throw up anymore, which is nice, but his friends keep talking and it makes his head spin, and Thor remembers, vaguely, a time when this was fun, back when he thought he’d always want this, more than this, party after party, night after night, a never-ending weekend bender. These days, he wants to shove that Thor’s face into a pillow and say, _Look at this. Feel that thread-count. Have you ever heard of sleep? _

Thor has. For example: he’s probably about to pass out. And that’s nice, he thinks. That’s relaxing.


	3. Chapter 3

Thor is sixteen years old. In the dream, he knows he’s sixteen because he has the mullet that he cut his hair into as a bet and took weeks to shave off because he could get away with it. He’s an athlete, he’s well-liked, and he has a girlfriend, a French exchange student who will be gone in a few months but who, for the moment, adores him. He wrestles on the school team and independently with a local gym that enters him into competitions that he wins, and he uses the money that doesn’t go into his college fund for gas and for beer.

He doesn’t think wrestling will last forever, but he has options. Wrestling will get him into a school better than the state schools near them, and Thor is almost good at almost everything, straight Bs across the board. He doesn’t apply himself, but he knows that he could, to the eternal dismay of his teachers. He’s thinking computer science or literature, maybe physics. He’s always been a fan of space.

When Loki comes into the picture, it’s a surprise. His parents are drug addicts, Thor thinks, or alcoholics—Thor isn’t sure what gets Loki taken away from them, but isn’t that what CPS does? In the dream, his mother’s friend, a social worker, takes his mother a glossy dossier like something out of a spy movie, mugshots of Loki spreading across the table like the bruises under Loki’s eyes. She tells his mother that it’s an emergency placement; she knows that Thor’s turned out alright and that they’ve got two spare bedrooms, and would they consider it, on such short notice, maybe?

(In truth, Thor isn’t asked about it so much as he’s told, one night after dinner.

“We don’t want to disrupt your schedule,” his mother says, “but this boy…he needs help, Thor.”

“But you aren’t foster parents,” Thor tells them, because he thinks someone ought to.

“There was a problem at his other foster home,” Thor’s mother says, and he hasn’t seen her look scary often, but that tight-lipped chilliness makes him worry for the other foster parents, whoever and wherever they are.

“Fine,” Thor says. That’s too easy for a sixteen-year-old, so he adds, a second late, “_God_.”

“He’s your age,” Odin says. It doesn’t sound like comfort, just a statement of fact, but it makes Thor curious. Shame on him, really.)

In the dream, Loki shows up with hair made of eels, and he’s small, so lanky and uneasy looking that it makes Thor realize that Loki is the Loki of his memory, sixteen and scared, and Thor is himself in real-time, full-grown and so much bigger than Loki that he towers over him.

“You’re welcome,” Loki says, and smiles, and then his eels are biting Thor, nipping at his hands, his arms where he has them covering his face.

“Oh, Loki,” Thor’s mother says, and his father says, “Oh, Loki,” and Loki is sitting on the couch in Thor’s childhood living room, drinking bright green tea as all three Odinsons lay bound in strange poses across the carpet, with rope made of eels, and when Thor says, “Let us go,” the carpet crawls into his mouth to gag him and Loki kicks him in the shin.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a suit?” he says, and Thor shouts himself awake.

His sleep is spoiled, after that.

* * *

Thor knows, reasonably, that a dream is a dream and real life is real life, but when he opens his hotel room door at nine and finds Loki on the other side, he flinches back so hard that he knocks his funny bone on the doorjamb.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, teeth gritted against anything that might sound like pain, and so, weakness.

“You got another letter,” Loki says, and raises it up like an entry ticket.

“You don’t need to come in,” Thor says, “thank you.”

“I don’t,” Loki says. “But you might want me to.”

“I do not.”

“Read the letter,” Loki says, and shoves it into Thor’s face. “I’ll wait.” By the time Thor bats the envelope down enough to grab it from him, he’s smirking, and that’s the last thing Thor sees before he closes the door between them.

The letter is already open, the little felon, but Thor reads it. That doesn’t mean he’ll open the door again. For all he cares, Loki can stand out there all day. Most of the letter is more or less what he’s been receiving for the last few weeks—creepy, but creepy the way a prank can be creepy, and a part of him has been convinced it’s an old friend trying to get one over on him.

But: _It’s so nice to see the brothers together once more_.

_I’ve wondered when you would be reunited. _

_Did you miss him the way I’m sure he missed you? What a happy family. What filial unity. Your parents must be so proud. _

He opens the door again. Loki has his hands in his pockets like he’s been waiting patiently, but Thor has never seen him patient in his life.

“Does this mean someone’s un-fired you?” Thor asks first.

“I was never fired,” Loki dismisses immediately, and pushes past Thor before he can stop him, taking a seat at the desk in the corner.

“You were,” Thor says weakly. “We decided yesterday.”

“I got to that letter before Heimdall did,” Loki says. “I told him it was a safety precaution, because I thought it was. He doesn’t know what’s in it. Yet.”

“Why would you hide this from him?”

“Because now, _I’m _implicated in this,” Loki says. “Do you know what that would do to my career?”

And this, at least, sounds like something Thor might have expected. “How, exactly, have you already managed to make this about you?”

Thor watches Loki take a breath. His nostrils still flare when he’s angry; he still doesn’t know what to do with his hands. For a moment, Thor thinks about murderous eels. Apt, he thinks; if Loki were an animal, he’d be just as slimy.

“I didn’t think you’d keep me on,” Loki says finally. He doesn’t look at Thor; instead, he keeps his eyes on the mirror over the desk. Thor wonders what he sees. Thor, for example, sees a spiteful, vindictive— “I came to speak to you. I thought I might… apologize.”

“Bullshit,” Thor says, and he knows he’s right because Loki rolls his eyes.

“Not all of it. The apology part, maybe. But… That is to say, I…have made mistakes. I wanted you to see that I was past them. That I’d done something better than…” Loki squirms in his seat like he’s in pain. Thor hopes he is. Thor hopes he _remembers _this discomfort. That’s a simple thing to think about, an easy thing to understand. Easier than this, a memory made physical, haunting his hotel room. He will not make this easy for him. “That was why I put myself forward for this position,” Loki says finally. “I didn’t disclose our history to the company, which is a fireable offense. I know that you don’t care for me, and doubt you will again, but you’ve never been malicious.”

“Maybe I’ve changed,” Thor says.

Loki says, “Maybe I have.”

Thor doesn’t know what to say to that.

"So what’s your plan, then?” Thor asks. “You stay on as my bodyguard, I make something up for my change of heart, you keep me from getting murdered, and you stay on for…how long? Until one of us retires? That’s a lot to ask of someone. Too much.”

“I stay on until I find your pen pal,” he says.

“I could just call the police.”

Loki laughs. “On what? An anonymous letter writer who hasn’t threatened you with violence?”

“They haven’t threatened you, either,” Thor points out. “They said that to me—maybe that’s it. The best thing for you career might be getting out of here. Then there’d be no more mention of you at all.”

“And if you ended up in danger anyway?” Loki asks.

“I can take care of myself.”

“No,” Loki says. “Heimdall is right. Your career is growing, and so are the number of eyes on you, and the risk to your wellbeing. And I’m _good _at this. You don’t have to trust me to trust that.”

“I do when it's my safety I’m handing off!”

“I didn’t ask you to hand your safety off! I asked you—”

There’s a knock at Thor’s door. “I heard yelling,” Heimdall says through the door, muffled but audibly rough; he must have been asleep.

“We’re fine,” Thor says.

“Who’s _we_?”

Loki sits forward a little, and if he were anyone else, Thor would think he was hopeful. Thor closes his eyes.

"Loki’s in here with me,” he says. “We’ve…reached an agreement.”

There’s silence from the other side of the door, and then, “Loki, cough two times if you’re still alive in there.”

“And well, I’m afraid,” Loki says, and when Thor opens his eyes again, he’s grinning at him, like whatever they used to be isn’t still very much fractured. It is, Thor realizes, about to be the longest tour of his life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> added tags! added warning! discussion of past homophobia, with discussion of events that happen off-screen. none of the present characters are the villains.

Loki on the road is stoic— he doesn’t make small talk, and when the bus goes over a pothole, he doesn’t yell and laugh with the rest of them, but closes his eyes with one sharp, irritated breath. And then nothing. 

Thor watches him in a way that he hopes is subtle. He can’t stop comparing and contrasting— would the Loki that walked into his room at sixteen, angry and gangly and awkward, keep such a streamlined poker face? Would the Loki that stared at his outstretched hand for a little too long before taking it relax against the bench like this? Would he catch him staring and stare back at him like this, more challenging than angry, a little amused— 

Thor looks away. 

“Problem?” Loki asks anyway, like that’s the etiquette. 

“Nope,” Thor says, but already Sif, who’s sitting beside him, is paying attention. 

“Who has a problem?” she asks. 

“Thor?” Heimdall calls from the front, and Thor even hears the driver, in a low murmur, ask what’s going on. All the while, Loki is smiling, a weird half-smirk that Thor thinks might be the closest he ever gets to a grin. 

He’s proven wrong when Fandral says, “He’s at it again, is he?” and Loki _laughs_. Silently, and Thor thinks he might be the only one who sees his shoulders shaking, but _still. _

“There is _no problem_,” Thor says through gritted teeth.

“Oh boy,” Hogun says— into the phone on his lap, which is annoying, because he wasn’t even paying attention, “here he goes again.” 

And Thor, in a stroke of brilliance, as quickly as he’s able, pretends to fall asleep. 

* * *

Thor is sixteen and Loki is sixteen and they’re standing off in the middle of Thor’s room. It’s big enough that they’ve stuck a narrow bed against one wall and moved Thor’s full to the other side. There is, technically, enough room for the both of them. It does, technically, feel like a stand-off in an old Western movie— _this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. _Thor, who is ready and willing to be the bigger person, sticks out his hand. Loki, who looks to be clinging to the little black knapsack on his back for dear life, stares at it. He looks, in a way Thor can’t define, hungry—like a stray cat, too thin, eyes too sharp. 

“Thor,” Thor says, just in case the other boy needs a little prodding. 

“Loki,” the boy says, and blinks a few times, like he’s trying to urge himself forward. When he does take Thor’s hand, his shake is tight and curt, over in a moment. 

“That side of the room is yours,” Thor says. “Mom says you’re staying with us for a while, so.” 

“Not for long,” Loki says quickly. 

“It’s whatever,” Thor says. “You hungry?” 

It isn’t bonding, exactly. They sit together with peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, Thor’s favorite at the time, and Thor laughs when Loki takes his first bite and makes an involuntary face, so thoroughly scrunched up that Thor thinks he might’ve broken him. A moment later Loki’s face smooths out into what Thor quickly learns is anger, but it doesn’t last— Thor offers to have that one and make him something else and he looks at him, with the same sort of delay it took him to shake Thor’s hand, and shakes his head. 

“It’s interesting,” Loki says. And Thor, confused and a little charmed, can’t help but agree. 

* * *

Thor wakes up to a hand on his shoulder. 

“Easy,” Loki says when he startles awake. “Everyone’s gone for a bathroom and food break. Up to you if you want to go along.” 

“No,” Thor says gruffly, and surreptitiously checks for drool. Not subtly enough, he thinks, if he’s judging Loki’s smirk correctly. “You can go along with them.” He gets along with them well enough, the traitors. 

“You’re aware that I have a job to do?” 

“We’re at a convenience stop,” Thor says. “I can lock the doors.” He’s trying very hard not to feel like a child. 

“The doors are locked,” Loki says, and pulls the letter out of his pocket, along with a small square notepad and a short pencil.

So this is what they’re doing. Thor thinks he should probably be disappointed, or irritated, or something, but grogginess has overtaken any other kind of emotion, and that might be a good thing. He’s too tired to lash out at Loki, and too sleepy to do much more than follow instructions. If there were ever a way for them to avoid a fight... 

“Where did you receive the first letter?” 

“My parents’ house,” Thor says, and the tip of the pencil snaps off against the paper. The noise is sharp enough that it wakes him up a little further. Loki clears his throat, and then pulls out a pen instead. 

“Do they still live in the same location?” 

“Their house? Yes.” 

“Are they sure of their... safety?” 

“They’re doing well, if that’s what you’re trying to avoid asking,” Thor says with a snort. 

“My concern is not—” 

“Mom missed you most, I think,” Thor says thoughtfully. And he knows he’s riling him up, he knows he’s being unkind, but it’s true: “Every time she’d go into her crafts room she’d sound a little sad— she got used to having company. It was too bad that...” The mistake is that Thor looks back at him. Loki is grim-faced and bearing it, without a hint of challenge about him, and that’s not what Thor was looking for. Thor doesn’t know what he was looking for, actually. A fight, maybe. A resolution. 

“You shouldn’t tell her—them—that you’ve seen me,” Loki says. “It wouldn’t—there wouldn’t be any point to it.” 

“Right,” Thor says awkwardly.

“Who would know the address?” Loki asks, all business again. 

“Anyone who knows my last name,” Thor says. “That’s not everyone—stage name, whatever—but my parents aren’t exactly private individuals.” 

“The second letter?” 

“On the road. The hotel we were staying at. And then the one you found was the third.” 

“Do you remember the hotel?” 

“No,” Thor says honestly. “It was a lot back to back, and I didn’t pay enough attention to it at first. Heimdall probably will, though.” 

Loki jots down his notes. 

“Look, Loki—”

“Our best bet is to pick up a pattern,” Loki says, a little too loudly. “I’ll be with you, of course, which should help, as far as a physical deterrent goes. But the letters... we don’t know enough, yet. They’re stamped, generic, no return address, but different postage each time. They’re handwritten, which implies some sort of intimacy— if the person wanted to be anonymous, they’d type it. It seems like they expect you to know who they are. Can you think of anyone it might be?” 

“Someone from high school?” Thor tries. “I can’t think of anyone else who’d know about you.” 

“Yeah,” Loki mutters. “Me neither.” 

“And speaking of—” 

“We don’t need to.” 

“I think we do.” 

“I disagree.” 

“Tough,” Thor says hotly. “I’m saying what I have to, and since you’re stuck next to me, you’re going to listen.” 

“You can try,” Loki says, and the amount of venom in his voice has Thor fighting back a smile. 

“Loki, I only want to know why. Surely it’s been long enough that you can tell me. Surely you can give me that.” 

“I don’t think it’s—” Thor pulls the notebook from his hands and closes it. Loki watches it go, a little helplessly. “What will it do now, to bring it up again? Why can’t you just let it go?” 

“Please,” Thor says easily. He doesn’t know how, but he’s ended up in a position of power—calm and waiting, without urgency, without nervousness. He can’t say the same for Loki, whose hands twitch into fists, jittering and strange. 

“You remember Skurge,” Loki says quietly. 

“Barely,” Thor says, which is half-true. He remembers a feeling of intense dislike, remembers unkindness on both sides, remembers watching the other boy be crueler to younger students. Remembers stepping in, when he could. He must make a face, because Loki almost-smiles to see it. 

“Yes, well. We spent some time together.” Too much time, if Thor remembers correctly. “He... I was used to that. It was strategy—you find someone big and mean and you make sure they won’t be mean to you.” 

“But he was,” Thor knows, because Thor remembers how Loki would lash out, sometimes, when Thor came upon them, how quick he’d be to anger when Thor made the mistake of expressing concern. 

“Not always,” Loki says wryly. “Only when he knew he could get something out of it. Entertainment. Damage.” 

“What did he do to you?” Thor asks, already angry, already ready to go back to sixteen-year-old him, sixteen-year-old Skurge, and make him regret it. 

“Made fun of me,” Loki says easily. “In a way that wouldn’t have mattered if it was later in my life, or if I were in a more... stable situation, or if it wasn’t at least a little bit true.” 

“Tell me,” Thor says, “because, frankly, the longer you take, the worse I’m assuming it is.” 

“Do you know why I got thrown out of the house I was in before yours?” Loki asks, out of nowhere. 

“I— no,” Thor says. “I know that they did something my mom found awful, but that could’ve been almost anything.” 

“They caught me kissing a boy,” Loki says, and laughs. “And barely that.” 

Thor doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s a part of him that freezes— there isn’t anything that feels right, at the moment, for him to do, not for the situation and not for Loki. He can’t hug him; he knows saying ‘sorry’ will just get him a scoff; he can’t time travel and tell younger Loki that he gets it, the way he looked at their family like he was waiting for the rug to be pulled out from below him, how protective his mother was over him, how nervous he always seemed to be around Thor’s friends.

He says, “Shit,” which is the closest he can get to any of that. And Loki laughs.

“In their defense, they offered to sign me up for a ‘program.’ I think it was my very loud and very detailed opinion of their religious ‘virtues’ that did it, in the end. It could have been worse.”

“And they should have been better.”

“I should have too,” he says, and waves Thor away before he can correct him. “To you. And Frigga.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Thor says hesitantly. “I am. But I don’t understand what that has to do with the rest.”

“I didn’t want it to happen again,” Loki says, and snorts. “So naturally, I assured it.”

They both startle at the beep of the locks opening.

“Break it up, losers,” Sif says, climbing in first and sucking enthusiastically at a Slurpee.

“Are they fighting?” Fandral asks. “My money’s on the pretty one.”

“But I’m not fighting,” Hogun says after him.

When they’re all climbing back into the bus, bickering good naturedly and stepping all over Thor’s feet, he knows that this moment, whatever he just had with Loki, is over. He can see the coolness trickles over him like water, smoothing his face, relaxing his shoulders, the way he puts his little notebook away like it’s no more than a handkerchief. And Thor wants to chase after him wherever he’s going, wherever he goes when he hides away like that. He’s always wanted to. Just as much as he’s always known that this isn’t the right time for that. Just as much as he knows there won’t ever be.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is mostly conversation but that is mostly my whole ~aesthetic~.

When they get to the hotel in Phoenix, there’s a letter waiting for them. It’s handed directly to Thor when he goes up to check-in, by a cherub-cheeked girl who doesn’t seem to know what’s she’s holding. It isn’t addressed except for with his name—his legal name.

“When did this arrive?” he asks, sotto voce—Loki is just behind him, as is Heimdall and a whole bunch of staff and roadcrew. They’re occupied at the moment—a guitar case and a suitcase are both broken in a way that seems unlikely, and with that and this, he’s starting to feel paranoid. Like this was orchestrated, just to get him to read the letter first.

“Maybe ten minutes before you came up to me?” she says cheerfully. “Hand-delivered.”

“What did they look like?”

“I don’t really,” the girl starts, and pauses, her smile dimming. “Is something wrong? Should I call my manager?”

“No,” Thor says, and tries to smile at her. It’s not her fault he has a stalker. “A prank that I’m trying to get ahead of. Just trying to cheat.” She laughs, but it’s an awkward, stilted thing.

He steps aside to open the letter. He’s careful with this one, tearing the end of the envelope clean off instead of risking cuts or worse from something under the seal.

“Were you going to—”

He doesn’t hear the rest of what Loki has to say, too busy jumping half out of his skin. He only notices his steady hands on his shoulders when his heart starts beating again, and swats them off of him.

“Asshole,” he says, but it’s a little too breathless to land the way he wants it to. To Loki’s credit, he doesn’t laugh; only raises both eyebrows enough to let Thor know that he _wants _to.

When Thor opens the letter, Loki leans in closer to him—

_Hello boys,_

_You’re reading this together, aren’t you. Bent together. Black and blond._

And then away, so sharply that Thor feels cold, for a moment.

“Fuck!” he swears, and turns around in a wide circle, checking for Thor isn’t sure what. A lurking figure? A camera? A gun?

He’s back at Thor’s side soon enough, and almost rips the letter away from him, but Thor’s back online enough to evade him.

“Stop, Loki,” he snaps. “Calm down. I got something from the receptionist. This came just a few minutes before we did. And it was hand delivered.” 

“Which receptionist?”

“That girl, there,” Thor says. “But she didn’t know anything else. No need for you to terrify her.”

“I am not terrifying,” Loki says coldly. It’s a bad example. Thor fights back the urge to laugh. He knows if he lets it out, it’ll go hysterical, fast.

“Ten minutes,” Thor says, and the hysteria is leaking out of him, anyway. His words come a little too fast. “Ten minutes before I came up to the desk, but I was in the lobby already. We were looking at the guitar cases. And you were—where were you? How do I know this isn’t you, after all? You got out of the bus first. You were—You had the time to—”

“You cannot,” Loki says, “you cannot _seriously _be suggesting—”

“I’m not suggesting, I’m accusing!” The only reason Thor doesn’t die when Heimdall comes up to them is that he sees him coming, so he knows what to expect when a wide, warm hand settles against his back, grounding him enough that he can hand the letter over to Heimdall without a word. Loki’s eyes widen. Thor can see him trying to remember what he’s read in the moment he’s had it, what could give him away. Thor bites back another bubble of laughter.

“They know that you two are together,” Heimdall says. “And—this part, _‘the past will out_,’ what’s that about?”

“Tell him,” Thor says.

“I don’t think—”

“_Tell him_,” he says again, voice rough and giving out on him, the same way his knees feel like they’re about to. “Tell him or I’ll tell him all the reasons I think it might be you!”

There’s fear in Loki’s eyes, for a moment, when he looks at him, but Thor doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, because if this is Loki—if this is Loki, and he’s managed to make Thor feel afraid, even for a moment that he knows it going to pass—he’ll never forgive him.

“Thor and I have prior history,” Loki says numbly.

“What kind of history?” Heimdall asks.

“I was fostered by his family briefly as a teen.”

“Okay,” Heimdall says slowly.

“The letter writer seems to know this.”

“And are you the letter writer?” Heimdall asks, and looks at him. Thor watches as Loki swallows. Shakes his head. “Do you have any connection to the letter writer?”

“Not that I know of,” Loki whispers.

“Do you know who the letter writer is?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Heimdall says, and turns the letter over to them. “For the record, you both read very slowly.”

“What?” Thor asks.

“‘When will they notice the brothers-no-more,’ and… right there, ‘did you miss his family when you left them_,’ _and ‘maybe I should tell them who you used to be little Loki.’” Heimdall shrugs. “I mean, it’s not subtle.”

“The last one,” Thor says. “The one we didn’t show you, it was the same.”

“Do not,” Heimdall says, “lie to me again. Either of you.” Loki nods curtly. Thor, who’s coming out of his mild panic attack with the vague and grumpy sense of being chastised, does nothing.

“Shall I tender my resignation?” Loki asks, one graceful eyebrow lifted. Thor wonders at that. He’s never known Loki to take a failure sitting down.

“No,” Heimdall says. “If anything, this has us closer to finding whoever this is. Afterwards, however…” He looks to Thor, who again does nothing. He doesn’t know what to believe, or even what to want, right now. Actually, no—he wants to go to bed. “This may not be the best fit for you.”

“Of course,” Loki says.

“Any referrals I give, though. This part stays out of it.” Heimdall claps him once on the shoulder, and is gone, back to putting out the case crisis, though it seems like everyone else has figured it out.

“I’m sleeping with you tonight,” Loki says, which brings the panic right back.

“_Excuse me_?”

Loki’s neck goes red. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll be sharing your room. For the sender to deliver it themselves, they might be staying at this hotel. I’m not letting you out of sight.”

“You are not _sleeping _with me, Loki!”

“That’s the spirit,” Fandral snickers on his way past. Thor only regrets having nothing to throw at him.

“You’re right,” Loki says. “I likely won’t be sleeping. But I can’t ask for security footage without sending the hotel into a panic, so that’ll have to wait until tomorrow when we’re on our way out. That means tonight’s risk status is—”

“Shut up,” Thor says. “Just—shut up, and stay shut up, and leave me alone.”

“I didn’t do this,” Loki says. “I know I’ve given you little reason to believe me, but I didn’t. Please believe that. At least trust that I care about my career.”

“Fuck me,” Thor says.

“That’s the spirit,” Volstagg says on his way past, one fist dancing in the air. Thor is going to die.

* * *

Getting ready for bed is very difficult when there’s a scowling figure dressed in black behind you, making the already jumpy more prone to, say, jabbing themselves in the gums with their toothbrush.

“I hate you,” Thor says to the mirror, bending down to rinse himself out. Loki only smirks.

“It’s only for tonight,” Loki says, following him out of the bathroom. “Think of it this way. Maybe we catch them tomorrow. Maybe this’ll all be over and I can—I can be out of your life again, as things should be.” Thor catches the way he stumbles, just as clearly as he knows he wasn’t supposed to. So he ignores it—ever the magnanimous one.

He tugs his shirt off and tosses it somewhere near the table by the TV, and lets his pants follow suit. He’s a little gratified to see the way Loki’s eyes are glued, rather aggressively, to the ugly abstract painting above the bed.

“So, what?” Thor asks, climbing into bed and sitting up against the headboard, the covers gathered at his hips. “You’re just gonna sit in the chair and wait until something happens?”

“I hope you don’t talk in your sleep,” Loki says.

“We could’ve called for a cot in here,” Thor says.

“I’ll be fine,” Loki says, and settles onto the chair. After a moment, he tugs it around so it more directly faces Thor.

“Okay,” Thor says, and it might as well have been to himself for all the attention Loki gives it. He’s pulled out his phone and is scrolling through something. Thor feels, inexplicably, unhappy with this dismissal. “Can you turn off the light?”

“Get it yourself.”

“You’re not in bed.”

“I’m also not going to sleep.”

“You’re the only one fully dressed.” He doesn’t say anything, so Thor rolls out of bed anyway. He nudges on the lamp nearest to him, but walks over to hit the overhead switch. Realistically, he can sleep through just about anything, including a light on. But Thor, being who he is, and Loki being Loki, he isn’t planning on making things easy.

“You’re welcome,” he says, when he gets back into bed.

“Again,” Loki says, “I’m not going to bed. I was happy enough with the light on.”

“I meant for the view,” Thor says with a leer. Loki looks up slowly. After a prolonged moment, wherein Thor feels more like he’s being found wanting than wanted, he snorts. And then returns to his phone.

So Thor tries to sleep. Honestly, he does. The bed is soft, the room is perfectly cool, the pillows are plentiful. But as soon as he decides to stop paying attention to Loki, the other man is all he can think about. Particularly their earlier discussion, cut short—_I assured it_. Was that an admission of regret, or did that mean that he knew what he had done would have consequences—drastic consequences? Did he get himself removed from their home on purpose? Why would he do that?

With a groan, Thor sits up.

“What now?” Loki deadpans. He clicks his phone locked and meets Thor’s eye. Whatever he sees there makes him pause. “What?”

“What did Skurge have on you?” Thor asks, which is not what he meant to ask at all. “I mean—”

“That’s not important,” Loki says, which is the stupidest thing Thor has ever heard him say, which is saying a lot, because he knew him at sixteen.

“Not important,” Thor repeats. “You—it got you thrown—I thought we were friends.” This isn’t what Thor meant to say, either. He’s starting to believe that the middle of the night was not the best time to have this conversation. He rubs at his eyes.

“What?” Loki asks, lost. That’s to be Thor’s solace, then—that Loki’s just as mystified by this conversation as Thor is. _But he isn’t leading it_, the most cautious part of Thor’s brain chimes in. As usual, he ignores it.

“That’s what fucked me up the most,” Thor says. “I thought we were friends, and then you did that… we were supposed to be brothers.”

And Loki, to his surprise, goes white. “We were never brothers.”

“We could’ve been.”

“Go to bed,” he says, through gritted teeth.

“No.”

“Then at least shut up.”

“You know exactly what to say to get me to shut up.”

“I don’t want to!” They’re both surprised to see Loki on his feet. Thor’s surprised enough that he almost does the same, forgetting, for a moment, the sheets wrapped around him. They take him a second to navigate. By the time he’s done, Loki’s sitting again, his elbows on his knees and his head on his palms.

“Loki,” Thor says cautiously, walking up to him. He considers stroking his hair. And then he immediately discards the idea.

When Loki looks up, he finds himself face to face with Thor’s bare middle, and he turns his face away like it’s a face full of sunlight. “Put some clothes on.”

“Grow up,” Thor says, and doesn’t. He does step away, though, enough that Loki can look at him without feeling crowded. He’s starting to feel cold, his skin pebbling with goosebumps, but he’ll be damned if he caves first. His whole body flexes in pulses, in an effort to keep himself from shivering.

“_Brothers_,” Loki mutters, and rubs at his eyes. “Brothers—you really thought we were going to be…?”

“Yes,” Thor says. “No. I don’t know. I didn’t really think about it. But we were close.”

“We weren’t.”

“You lived in my house. In my room. It was impossible not to be.”

“What did you even know about me?”

Thor crosses his arms. He knows it looks defensive; sue him, he is. It also warms him up, a little. Enough to make him forget how sad this whole conversation is. “You were clever. You were good at almost anything. Especially detailed things—I saw some of the jewelry you made with mom. The little ornaments. Figured you’d become an architect or something.”

“So I was clever and liked arts and crafts,” Loki says, and laughs, a little bitterly. “Good summary of the idea of a person.”

“You were mean,” Thor offers, and that gives Loki pause. “Defensive. I figured it was because of stuff that had happened that you didn’t want to talk about. I guess I was right.”

“Thor—”

“You could always do anything you wanted to. I don’t mean that in a ‘anything you dream you can do’ kind of bullshit way. You were always so determined to be better than whoever you competed against. In gym, in math, whatever. You could be brutal about it. I liked talking to you. You were never boring. Even if sometimes I wish you would be, with me.”

“That’s a stupid thing to wish for.”

“Competition all the time, that’s unhealthy.”

“Unhealthily competitive jerk,” Loki says. “Are you sure it’s me you’re describing?”

“I knew you,” Thor say. “I liked you. I thought you liked me, and then you did... what you did." There's something about the pained set of Loki's mouth that makes him gentle his words. "What did he say to you? What could he possibly say to get you to ruin my—ruin my sixteen-year-old life,” he allows, before Loki could bring up the present to trounce it.

“He knew I wasn't straight,” Loki says slowly, like he already regrets saying it. “And then—I don’t know, I think he saw me looking at one of your teammates. And jumped from there, to you.”

“He thought I was gay?”

“_No_,” Loki says, low and vicious. “He decided that I wanted _you_.”

Of all the things Thor might have expected, none of them were that. He fights down the urge to cover himself, wary of giving Loki the wrong idea; he wouldn’t let him think for a moment that he thought Skurge was right, that he believed that little asshole. But—

“I don’t get it.”

That laugh again. “Of course you don’t.”

“That’s embarrassing, of course it is, I’m not downplaying that, but—”

“Everyone’s always loved you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Golden boy,” Loki says. “Your parents love you unconditionally, you’ve had friends, you’ve had teachers who liked you, you had _teammates_. If you had come out, at least one of those groups would have been steadfast. You never would have had to doubt that you had a—a shoulder to cry on. A bed.” Loki, whose gaze had been hovering somewhere around Thor’s knees, finally draws his eyes back up. What Thor sees there makes him swallow. The honesty. The exhaustion. “Imagine, for a moment, you’re a teenager with none of that. Who’s been kicked out for less. You’d think, okay, the mom is cool with me being queer, but there’s a difference between ideology and having it presented it to you, under your roof, pointed towards your actual child. You’d panic.”

It takes Thor a second to find his voice. “I would talk to someone I trusted.” He means himself. He knows Loki knows that, but still, he shakes his head.

“Not applicable. Anyway—every time Skurge saw you, and I was there… it was neverending. I knew at some point he’d say something with you or one of your posse in earshot. So to prove just how much I didn’t love you…”

“You stole my coach’s car and framed me.” Loki winces.

“I didn’t think they’d believe it. Believe me. I wasn’t used to people believing me. And seeing your face, when I left…” He shakes his head. His eyes are shining. Thor fights the urge to look away. He wants to see it—the way Loki puts himself back together. Even though he knows what he’ll see. Anger will slot in first, to drive the regret away, to take up the space eaten up by sadness.

It does. Loki’s lip curls. “Obviously I didn’t do too much damage.”

“I lost you,” Thor says. Loki’s eyes widen again. Thor tries not to feel the triumph there, too much. That he’s startled him out of whatever recovery mode he was in, even as he looks back at the floor. “And then my spot on the team, and then any hope of a scholarship. I’m lucky I wasn’t expelled. Actually, I’m lucky my parents believed me instead of murdering me outright,” he says lightly.

“Frigga would never allow it,” Loki says, and laughs wetly. That instinct to touch his hair rears its head again. Thor gives that a miss, but he steps forward again, close enough that Loki has no choice but to look up at him.

“It’s a big enough bed that you can have one side of it,” Thor says. “You’re barely going to be sleeping, anyway. You can lay on top of the covers and look alive or whatever.”

“Not this time,” Loki says quietly.

And Thor says, “Okay.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw nonconsensual drink spiking (w alcohol)

Thor is sixteen years old. Three years from now, he’ll meet Sif at an open mic and Volstagg at the bar. One year later, Heimdall will introduce him to Fandral and Hogun, and one year after that his future begins in earnest. But right now, he’s sixteen, mullet gone because of how Loki made fun of it, but also because of the glee he got out of throwing the unattached ponytail in his face and getting to watch him bat it away from him with a truly unholy shriek. Thor is sixteen years old, and he hadn’t meant to go to the party. It had sort of crept up on him, and then Loki, to his immense surprise, wanted to go, too.

“What are you doing tonight?” Thor had asked, coming into their room after a disappointing practice session. Loki had shrugged from his perch on his bed, a novel held open between his knees by a half-full bag of Skittles. “There’s a party by the lake tonight.”

He isn’t expecting Loki to carefully close his book.

“Are you going to go?”

“I didn’t really plan on… Do you want to?” Thor asks. He’s asked before, is the thing—for Loki to come along to the movies, to the football games, to friends’ houses, bowling—and it’s gotten him too used to hearing no.

“Who’s throwing it?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a whole class thing, I think. I mean, it’s outside. Easy for you to escape, if you decide you don’t want to be there.”

Loki hums and swings his legs around so that he’s facing Thor. This is rare, too. For the last few weeks, Loki’s been avoiding and evading him, at school and at home. Thor hadn’t realized how much it was getting to him until he feels himself relax at Loki’s attention.

“I’ll go if you do,” Loki says.

“You don’t sound like you want to,” Thor tells him. “I’m alright doing something else. We could play some video games, maybe? Order in a pizza? Mom and dad are out for the night, so we have the place to—”

“We should go,” Loki says quickly. “I mean it. I haven’t gone to a party in—in ages.”

“Me neither.”

“Likely story,” Loki says, and throws a pillow at him. Thor catches it and tosses it back; Loki ducks, but he’s grinning. “You and your hooligans.”

“Hooligans? How old are you?”

“Old enough to do better than them,” Loki retorts, and what Thor wants to say, what he’s _dying _to say, is that Loki’s friends are worse—they’re mean, and mean-spirited, and bullies when they can get away with it, burnouts in the making. But he doesn’t want to fight Loki, not when they’re talking again, for the first time in ages.

“I don’t go to a lot of these because people tend to have a specific kind of plan for these nights,” Thor says. “It’s always drinking or hooking up.”

“So, what? You’re the only teenage boy in the world who’s sworn off of both?” Loki snorts. “Pull the other one.”

“Ha-ha,” Thor says, “For your information, there are plenty of monks that—” He doesn’t catch the second pillow in time, but Loki’s laughter is worth it, anyway. “Stupid,” Thor says, and considers going in for a tackle. “As I was _saying_. I can’t drink, because we’re training right now, and coach’d kick me off the team if he found out—and he absolutely would, because nobody can keep their mouth shut. And I wouldn’t hook up with somebody drunk. That’s creepy.”

“There are lots of people who don’t drink,” Loki says, and looks at him, suddenly straight-faced. “Lots of girls.” And then, like he can’t help himself, “You’re not that special.” 

“I like quiet parties,” Thor admits. “People I know. This just seems too big. How would you even find someone to talk to like that?”

For a second, he thinks Loki might have something to say—some sort of advice, maybe, or some kind of comfort. He’s good for that, on occasion, even though it tends to make him look constipated. But a second after that and he’s looking away, turning back to his book. “Go take a shower.”

“Are you—”

“I’m coming,” he says curtly. “But you take ages to get ready. Stop talking.”

“Touchy,” Thor says, and pitches the pillow at him on his way out the door, swift enough that he drops his candy. And then he runs.

* * *

When Thor wakes up, Loki is gone, but Heimdall is there, shaking him away.

“Oh, no,” he says, still half asleep. “That’s not you.”

“It is,” Heimdall says. “It is me. Glad you survived the night.”

“Mrrrph,” Thor says, burying his face in his pillow.

“I thought you might want to know that Loki’s checking the security footage.”

“Yes,” Thor says. “Tell me when he’s checking the security footage.”

“I did. He is. Now.”

“Wait,” Thor says, rolling over. “When?”

“Oh my god,” Heimdall says.

“I’m up,” Thor says, and does his best, really. “I am. I’ll be. Yes. There. Five—two minutes. That’s _my _stalker.” He propels himself towards the bathroom, doing what he believes is an admirable job of keeping his feet under him.

“That’s the spirit,” Heimdall says. “Should I wait here, then? No?”

Ten minutes and several slaps to his own face later, Thor is downstairs and half awake in yesterday’s clothes, but his teeth are brushed and his hair is tied up, so he’s pretty sure that counts as a job well done.

The same girl is at reception, still bright-eyed, her tail a little less bushy than yesterday. “Ah, Mr. Thor, sir,” she says, and beams at him. He waves it away.

“Where’s the… scary one. All in black. Looks like a witch.” So he’s a quarter awake. It’s the thought that counts.

Her smile turns to a grimace. “God,” she says under her breath, before she gets it together again. “Right behind the counter, sir.”

There’s a door to the right of the reception desk, and when she ushers him through it, he finds himself confronted by a series of video screens, the light in the room so blue that he has to blink a few times in the face of it.

“Loki?” Loki hushes him, as does Heimdall, standing beside him. The security guard next to them hardly gives him a passing glance. He fights back the urge to claim the stalker as his again.

“If you can get this on the other lobby angles, that’d be great,” Loki is saying to the security guard. “Same time stamp. Might be our best bet at getting a face.” The guard presses a few buttons, until most of the screens are displaying the same black-clad figure. “What do you see?”

“A woman,” Heimdall says. “Or a very slender man, but I doubt it. Light skin. Blonde.”

“Where do you see her hair?”

“It’s slipped out a little,” Heimdall says, squinting at the screen. “Right there.” He runs his finger along one side of the figure’s hidden face, at what Thor assumed was a scratch on the screen.

“Good catch,” Loki says. He has his little notebook out, Thor notices. Full of chicken scratch writing.

“Pissed off any blondes lately?” It takes Thor a moment to realize that Heimdall is speaking to him, long enough that all three of them are looking at him when he does reply.

“No. Never. I mean—not enough for… all this.”

“You aren’t being blamed for this,” Loki says quickly. “The question was poorly presented. Look at this—do they look familiar to you? At all? Anyone who might be upset at you, for anything?”

“Do you think the letter-writer’s mad at me?” Thor asks, even as he steps forward, leaning into the screen. There’s something familiar about her, sure, but only because she looks perfectly average—average build, average carriage. Even the receptionist didn’t remember enough to describe her. “I don’t recognize her, no.”

“Keep her in mind tonight,” Loki says. “Security will be thorough. I’ll be just offstage. If you need me, I’ll be there.”

“Sure,” Thor says, still looking at the stilled video. “Could we play this? I didn’t see that part.”

The security guard complies. There’s a skip, and then the figure is at the end of the lobby. They walk like they know there’ll be cameras, which isn’t a stretch. Big black glasses. Hoodie up just enough to cover their head, not low enough to cause suspicion. What looks like a smile at the receptionist. A few words exchanged. A wave on the way out. And then gone. 

“So they didn’t stay here.” He looks to Loki, who shrugs.

“Not that we saw.”

“So this gave us what?”

“I don’t know yet,” Loki says. Thor looks at him. There are bags under his eyes, like he knew there would be. They’re red at the edges. He wonders if he’ll be able to convince him to sleep when they’re on the bus tonight. He surprises himself by hoping so.

“Okay,” Thor says.

“For now,” Heimdall says, “we go to the venue. Thor—go get ready. Loki, a word?”

“Of course,” Loki says, and when he stands up and takes a breath, all signs of tiredness almost disappear under a careful guise of professionalism. It’s almost sad.

“Oh,” Thor says, “so I can just go? I’m safe to roam the halls? No risk of a blonde woman side-swiping me from the shadows on my way to my room?” 

“You’re right,” Loki says, with the shadow of a smile. “Would you mind escorting him?”

“Uh,” the security guard says. Thor is gone before he can figure out how to answer that.

* * *

The closer they get to the party, the less Loki seems to want to be there. His shoulders are hunched in on themselves by the time they’re pulling off the highway, and Thor pulls onto one of the dark side-streets and switches on his hazard lights.

“What are you doing?” Loki says, wide-eyed and pale in the darkness.

“I thought we should talk,” Thor says, and turns to him. “What is it?”

He thinks that what Loki is trying to do is turn and talk to him, too. But Loki presses his back to the door and has one hand on his seat back, the other on the dashboard, and it looks like he’s trying to run away.

“What do you mean?” he says, so quietly that Thor almost misses it.

“You look terrified,” Thor says. “We literally do not have to go. We could go grab a burger. We could go home and you could go back to ignoring me.”

“I want to go,” Loki says, and it is absolutely a lie.

“You don’t.”

“Do you presume to know what I think?”

“Loki, you can talk to me,” Thor says, and he doesn’t care that it sounds like he’s begging. He is. Loki is supposed to be getting _more _comfortable around him, not less. Happier, not unhappier. He can’t quite silence the part of him that’s saying that there’s something terrible he’s doing, something he’s doing wrong. “Have I done anything—”

“_No_, you _idiot_,” Loki says. “I finally say yes to going somewhere with you, and you—you—you immediately try to ruin it! If you don’t want me to come with you, let me out here! God—”

When he goes to unlock his door, Thor uses the automatic lock to lock it again. This happens twice more before Loki turns the full force of his glare on Thor.

“I will not play this game with you.”

“Fine,” Thor says. “We’ll go. But—if you don’t want to talk to me, at least find someone you can talk to. At the party, I mean. If you need an excuse to get out.”

“I won’t need anything,” Loki says, sullen. “_God_.”

“I was just trying to be—”

“Nice?” Loki asks, like it’s the worst thing he can imagine.

Thor doesn’t say anything. He directs the car back onto the road, and pulls away. When they finally park on a gravel lot, close enough that they can see a bonfire down towards the beach, Thor expect Loki to take off immediately. He gets out fast, but he waits. They walk down to the party together.

* * *

The first thrum hits Thor right in the heart. The second hits him harder, especially when the crowd recognizes the song. The lights aren’t up, yet. This is the magic moment—right here, when he knows what’s going to happen, but they don’t, yet, not really. They know they’ll hear music, they know they like the songs, but they don’t know anything about what he’s like. How he’ll move, how he’ll bring the songs to life. That’s his real job—this moment. Making magic.

On the fifth strum, the lights flash red, and then green. And then blue, and then gold. And then it’s a riot of color and sound and they can see him just as clearly as he can see them, they can hear him just as clearly as he can hear them, and nothing exists—not the stalker, not his history, not Loki—nothing but muscle memory, the way the song vibrates in his throat, the way his hands on his guitar neck follow its rhythm, the way his whole body works together to bring his music to life.

It’s a beautiful, chaotic blur, and it’s almost like a blackout, the way he turns everything else off when he’s onstage. He sings into the mic and then carries the mic to Sif and has her harmonize, her bass dancing. He makes faces in front of Hogun at the drums and blows kisses at Fandral at the keys. He duels with Volstagg on their guitars.

They play two songs back to back before he comes back to the mic stand, sweaty and living. “How’re you doing, Albuquerque?” Good, from the sound of it. Really good. “I’m Thor, and this is Sif—” She raises her hands—“Volstagg—” He flips him off. “Fandral, my love, blow them a kiss.” Fandral, the lout, does. “And Hogun, my love—oops.” Fandral and Hogun step towards each other, fists raised, matching scowls on their faces, until Fandral, being who he is, blows another kiss. The Hogun catches, straight-faced. They both give a bow to thunderous applause. “And we are so very happy to play for you.”

And so it goes.

* * *

Skurge is there, lurking at the edge of the woods, because of course he is. But Loki is by Thor’s side, even as he dashes glances in Skurge’s direction ever so often.

“If you want a drink, go ahead,” Thor says, nudging him. “I’m driving, so. I’ll look after you.”

“Don’t say that,” Loki says.

“What do you mean?” Thor asks, walking towards the water. A couple of the lacrosse girls are swimming, which he doesn’t understand at all. They’re too far north for that to be comfortable, surely.

“Nothing,” Loki says. “Never mind. I’ll get something to drink for us.”

“Coke is fine,” Thor says. “Thanks.”

Loki looks at him, and for a second, looks wretched. Later, Thor is sure it was just the firelight. And then he nods, and goes.

“Thor!” One of the junior varsity boys—Hunter—claps Thor into an enthusiastic hug. He’s drunk—not obnoxiously so, but enough that some of his drink splashes out of its cup. “You made it! And brought you’re little shadow along, too.”

“Don’t call him that, come on.”

“No disrespect, man,” Hunter says, and Thor reconsiders his initial impression. “He’s just—all the black, you know. Also, you. Big.” He shapes a vaguely large shape in the air, just in case Thor misses his meaning. “Nothing wrong with, like, goths or whatever.”

“Move on,” Thor says.

“We’re sitting on a log,” Hunter says. “Come s—come sit. Samantha asked about you. I think because you’ve got no more mullet, but I’m a pessifist.”

“Pessimist?”

“Okay,” Hunter says, “over there!” and follows his own waveringly pointed finger. Thor sighs.

“I come bearing drinks,” Loki says from behind him. Hunter wasn’t quiet, and if Thor hoped Loki hadn’t heard, that hope is dashed on the flint in his eyes. “Coke for you, some kind of mysterious punch for me.”

“Thanks,” Thor says. “Loki—”

“The punch is good,” Loki says, before he can say anything. “You should try a sip. Just the one, don’t worry. We wouldn’t want someone’s coach going ballistic.”

Thor takes a sip.

* * *

After the show, mid-high, Loki comes into his dressing room. Thor is too busy enjoying a show well done to feign annoyance, so he maybe smiles a little to big when Loki walks in.

“Loki,” he says.

“Thor Odinson,” Loki says. “I see it, now. Why you left Blake behind you.” If Thor was flattering himself, he’d think Loki looks impressed, or at least Loki’s version of it.

“Thor Blake,” Thor says, and shakes his head. “Doesn’t sit right in the mouth, you know? Figured I’d lean into the Thor thing.”

“And it’s not like it’s inaccurate.” Loki sits on one of the vanity seats, right opposite where Thor’s let himself drape over the loveseat. “It was good.”

“Good! From you! Impossible.”

“You’re right,” Loki says, and lets a smile slip out. “It was adequate.” Thor laughs.

“Any sign of a slim blonde with eyes only for me?”

“Not yet,” Loki says, “but there’s also no sign of violence or escalation, so I’ll take it.”

“Guess I’m stuck with you for a little longer yet,” Thor says. Loki grins, all teeth.

* * *

When Thor’s head starts spinning, he dismisses it.

* * *

“To the bus, then?”

“Not yet,” Thor says. “Just—” _Let me enjoy this_. It’s not going to last, he knows. His bandmates will come in from where they’re packing up their instruments. They’ll all go to the bus. It’ll be noisy. Loki or he himself will say something to rile the other up. The tension and the premature stage fright will kick in for the next show. But right now, everything’s perfect. Right now… “I never asked.”

“What’s that?”

“Skurge’s accusation. Did you?”

Loki freezes on his seat. It looks very funny for someone so tall and so serious to be frozen on a small vanity stool. It lists slightly, like it’s going to turn him around in a circle. “What?”

“Did you have a thing for me in high school,” Thor clarifies. And it’s supposed to be light. It’s supposed to be teasing. Thor’s smiling, for godssake. He doesn’t expect Loki to go so pale, and then so red, so quickly. He wonders if he’s light-headed. Thor feels his performance high slowly crash in on itself, and god, is the crash going to hurt. “Uh,” he says. “I didn’t…”

“I know you didn’t,” Loki says harshly, and then freezes again, only to bark a quick “Fuck!” when his elbow collides with the counter.

“Uh,” Thor says again, “I mean to say I didn’t mean to bring up… I mean, I didn’t think…”

“I didn’t, anyway,” Loki says, far too late and far too obviously. “That would’ve been a terrible thing to do to someone you—anyway!” When he stands, he straightens all of the parts of his suit that don’t require straightening. “I think they need us at the bus.”

“Right,” Thor says blankly. It takes him a long time to follow.

* * *

“Loki,” Thor says, and takes a deep breath. Suddenly he’s breathless. Suddenly everything is a little too bright, a little too slow, a little too loud. “It was…coke?”

“Which time?” Loki asks innocently. He sips at the punch. His lips are very red.

“Hm,” Thor says, and makes it up a little knoll and to a little knot of bushes before he’s sick all over the roots.

“Shit,” he hears from behind him, and then there’s a shape at his back, hands at his shoulders, holding him up. “You’re far to tall and muscly for this to be hitting you like this. What the hell?” 

“What?” Thor mumbles. “What was it?”

“Just a little vodka,” Loki says, and he sounds like he’s panicking. Thor doesn’t like that.

“Everclear,” someone else says, and snickers. “What a wuss.”

“What the fuck?” And then Thor is being laid down, gently, on the grass. “Stay awake,” Loki says. “I’ll be right back.” There are footsteps, and then, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“It’s what I could get! There’s not that big a difference, anyway.”

“Twice as much alcohol is a big fucking difference, _asshole_.”

“Nah,” Skurge says, and Thor knows it’s Skurge because that voice is _mean_. And _stupid_. “You know what this is? This is your _crush_.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not if you’re too busy fucking—hrmph!”

“Sorry—sorry,” Loki is saying to Thor, his breath hot on Thor’s ear. “I’ll get you up, I’ll get you home—”

“Loki,” Thor says, and smiles, even though he can’t get all the way straight, his face lost somewhere in Loki’s clavicle, his feet on the ground again. “So nice. Glad we’re friends again.”

“Sure, Thor. Come on.”

“Don’t pussy out!” Skurge yells, but his voice sounds a little nasal, like he’s got a hand on his nose. He’s laughing, but it sounds pained, like he’s torn between being hurt and pretending he isn’t.

“Don’t like him,” Thor says, and then something occurs to him. “Don’t like him. Like me!”

“I like you plenty,” Loki says darkly. “That’s what got me into this mess.”

“How will we get home? I didn’t mean to do this,” Thor says miserably. “I’m sorry.” He’s starting to cry. He can feel it. It’s unexpected, but nice, too. Warm, until it makes Loki shoves him off of him. “Sorry,” he says again, like he’s stuck on a loop. He rubs at his eyes. “Sorry, sorry…”

“Don’t. Stop it!” Thor does, mostly out of surprise. Loki’s standing there, half-lit, his fists at his side. Tomorrow, one of those will be bruised. Tomorrow, a lot of things will be different. “You don’t get to be sorry,” Loki says. “None of this—none of this is you, okay? But—_fuck_! Give me your keys.”

“Are you taking me home?”

“Yes,” he says, and sags. “Give them to me.”

“But have you had _drinks_?”

“No,” Loki says.

“Promise?”

“Yes,” Loki says, and Thor isn’t sure, but it looks like he might be about to cry, too.

“Are you going to cry?”

“That’s gay,” Loki says.

“That’s stupid,” Thor says. “You can cry. I can cry. Everybody can cry. Like Oprah.”

Loki laughs, a little wetly. “Well if someone as straight as you can cry.”

“Straight,” Thor snorts. “Mind your business.”

“What?”

“I didn’t say that,” Thor says, and realizes, suddenly, that they’re right next to the car, and Loki’s already unlocked it. “Words in my mouth,” Thor continues, getting in and strapping up. He forgets to close the door, but Loki does that. “Ass of you, ass of me, assume-ee.”

“You’re drunk,” Loki says sadly. “It’s okay. You’ll sleep it off.”

“And then tomorrow we’ll be fine?” Thor asks.

“Tomorrow,” Loki says. At the time, it sounds like a promise. The next day, like the devil. Years later, like the worst word in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(


	7. Chapter 7

The bus ride to Phoenix is quiet. Every time Thor looks at Loki, he looks away. All Thor can think about is that this means that Loki was looking at him, first.

* * *

The car was parked on the school lawn, just shy of crashed through the school sign. The keys were found on top of a pair of running shoes, behind a broken locker door in the boy’s locker room. The locker, of course, was Thor’s.

* * *

The first thing Loki says to Thor in six hours is, “I’m switching cars.”

“You—Loki—” But it was a courtesy alert, and barely that; Loki was already gone, slipping into a taxi in the parking lot of a strip mall. Thor hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep. He’s awake now, awake and disappointed in an odd, unsatisfying way.

“What was that about?” Sif asks. He doesn’t say anything. When the driver starts the engine up again, she slips into Loki’s abandoned seat. “Thor.”

“What?”

“At some point, you, Heimdall and Goth Ken Doll are going to have to let the rest of us in the loop.”

“What do you mean?” Thor says, but it’s half-hearted. His bandmates were his friends second, and his friends primarily. And they weren’t stupid. He can hear the way the back of the bus falls quiet, whatever chatter was going on between the other three dropping away in favor of dropping eaves.

“We’ve been patient,” Sif says, impatiently, “but there are limits. And now, with how quiet the two of you have been… did something happen?”

“Not,” Thor starts, “I mean, no. Not the way you’re probably thinking.”

“Then what?” Sif asks, and puts her hand on his arm. “Thor.” And if that isn’t a blatant cheat. She knows how to get him to cave; she always has.

“I just,” Thor says, “I asked him, about something that…happened…in our youth. And it was… unwise to bring it up.”

“Was it romantic?” Hogun asks from behind him. Thor doesn’t look back at him, but he hears a thud that he’s sure is Fandral striking his shoulder.

“Historically speaking, he means,” Fandral says smoothly.

“No,” Thor says, but his voice wavers, and his friends go silent.

Volstagg lets out a hooting laugh. “Someone had their heart broken.”

“Volstagg,” Sif says chidingly. Thor can see her connecting the dots. “You brought up your past, but something personal. Not whatever he did to ruin your life, or whatever it was you were talking about when you were drunk. Something smaller.” She snorts. “Something embarrassing.”

“A love confession,” Hogun says.

“Worse,” Fandral says.

“What’s worse?” Volstagg asks.

“A love conclusion,” Fandral says, and plants his hand over his heart. “It’s happened to me, once or twice. You ask the wrong question, you tell a girl she seems taken with you, and suddenly you’ve a face full of Prosecco and a year-long ban from your favorite local.”

“We grew up together,” Thor says, before Fandral can offer up any more salacious details. “A bit. He stayed with my family for a few months. We didn’t part amicably.”

“And?” Hogun says.

“_And_,” Thor says, and panics. “He’s here as a bodyguard because I have a stalker.”

The others wait like they’re expecting a punchline. Volstagg goes as far as a stilted, “Ha-ha?” before it seems to click for them.

Sif reels back first. “_That’s _why he left?”

“I _knew _it couldn’t simply be your star power—no offense, my love, but—”

“A stalker seems star-powerful to me,” Hogun mutters.

“Is there a reason,” Volstagg says slowly, “that we weren’t told?”

“Didn’t want to make you nervous,” Thor mumbles. “Besides, I didn’t think it was serious.”

“Bullshit,” says Sif.

“I didn’t! At least, I thought it would be over quickly. But then, there was a letter waiting at our hotel, and the woman had dropped it off just before we arrived…”

“We have two hours before we get there,” Hogun says. “I suggest you speak quickly. It seems like there are many things you left out.”

“Not really,” Thor says, weakly.

Sif says, “Speak,” and he does.

Suffice to say he’s exhausted once they get to the hotel. He gets a little kick of energy seeing Loki standing outside of the hotel, his hands clasped behind his back, but it plummets as soon as it remembers it should; he looks all business, face placid when Thor reaches him. Thor tries to remind himself that embarrassment stings, and surely Loki only needs a little more time to lick his wounds.

“Anything I missed?” he asks.

“No,” Loki says. “I’ve had your bag sent up to our room.”

“Our room, huh?” Loki’s eyebrow twitches. “I mean—do you have a bed, at least, this time?”

“Yes,” Loki says, and leaves it at that.

“Come for a drink in ours,” Fandral says, smacking him on the shoulder hard enough to knock him forward half a step in Loki’s direction. Loki’s other eyebrow twitches. “You’re both invited, of course. We’ve got questions, haven’t we?”

“I told them,” Thor tells Loki.

“Did you,” Loki says tightly.

“About the letters.”

“Hm.” Thor is so full of regret, and it only grows when Fandral’s eyebrows rise, full and gleeful.

“Perhaps there are other questions for us to ask. Either way—upstairs in ten.” One more slap and he’s gone, leaving Thor frozen in place, Loki’s eyes looking directly through him.

“Shall we go…to… our room, then?”

“I’ll see you there.”

“But I thought you said nothing’s happened?”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t.”

“Listen,” Thor says, and drops his voice. “I’m sorry I brought high school up, okay? It was a long time ago. Can we just, you know, pretend I didn’t? Please, Loki.”

Loki looks at him. “Don’t apologize for stupid things.”

“I’m not,” Thor says. There’s something about what Loki’s said and the way he’s said it that sparks something in Thor’s brain, but it’s lost a moment later. It doesn’t matter, anyway; Loki lets a little huff of air out of his nose and rolls his eyes, and just like that, Thor knows that whatever this is has passed.

* * *

Thor doesn’t remember last night. He just knows that there’s a tension in the air when he wakes up the next morning—Loki is avoiding him again, even though he keeps catching him looking at him, something like an apology on his face—and tension in the school hallways when he walks in on Monday. He makes it to his locker before anyone says anything to him, even though everyone keeps looking at him in a way that makes him self conscious. He’s looking at his hair in his phone screen when the assistant principal finds him.

“Mr. Blake,” she says, and looks so disappointed that Thor looks behind him on instinct, looking for whoever could’ve set her off. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

And hour later, Thor is in the principal’s office for the first time in his life, his mother on one side of him, his father on the other. His coach is standing up by the principal’s desk. The principal looks mystified. Thor knows that there is no way in hell she could be more confused than he is.

“Tell us about Saturday night, Thor,” the principal says.

“The lake party?” Thor says. “Why?”

“You should be more careful who you let in your house,” Thor’s coach says to his parents, pointed and harsh.

“What?” Thor asks. His mother’s grip on his arm tightens.

“You used to be a good kid,” his coach says. “And now look what he’s turned you into. Another burnout in the making.”

“_What_?” Thor asks again.

“Here’s what we know,” the principal says. “Someone swiped Coach’s keys after practice on Saturday. Do you know where we found them?”

“No?”

“Your locker, Thor. Do you know where we found his car?”

“Not my locker, I’m assuming?”

“Thor,” his mother says quietly.

“On the lawn,” the principal says. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t—can you just cut to the chase, please? I’m lost here.”

“Theft,” the coach says. “Vandalism. So, what? Laufeyson put you up to this? Got you to swipe my keys and go on a bender—and then go on a joyride? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I didn’t—”

“What, get drunk? Please.”

“We’ve spoken to a few witnesses, Thor,” the principal says. “Coach is still decided on whether or not to press charges. I’m just trying to figure out exactly what happened to lead to this.”

“I don’t…”

“Just tell us what happened, Thor,” Coach says, and the thing is, Thor would. But:

He remembers asking for coke, remembers Loki bringing it back.

He remembers taking just the one sip of Loki’s punch.

He remembers lightheadedness—but it was fine, because Loki was there.

He remembers dizziness, but Loki—

Remembers getting sick, but Loki—

Loki—

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Thor says. It doesn’t get better.

* * *

What Thor is expecting from Fandral and Hogun’s room is a little bit of a bender. He isn’t expecting the door to be opened, not by them, but by someone else.

“No,” is the first thing he says, and then, “no fucking way.”

“Thanks, Odinson,” Valkyrie says. “Real charming,” and laughs when he sweeps her up into a hug, half tackling her into a room in his enthusiasm.

“You’re here!”

“I am.”

“You’re here?”

“Yes?”

“Why’re you here?”

“Again,” she says, pushing away from him. “Real charming.”

Thor’s friends are laughing at him, but he doesn’t care. Him and Val came up together, playing the same festival circuits, the same gigs night after night, the same little tours through small-town college bars… sacred.

“I called her,” Heimdall says. “Thought it might be nice to have a surprise opener for our second-to-last.”

“Ta-da,” Val says drily, and twists her hands around in the air. “She appears.”

“To Valkyrie!” Fandral calls, and then there’s a drink in Thor’s hand. He takes it because everyone is raising up a glass, but takes a questioning sniff just in case. He can smell the tequila from several inches away. So it’s that kind of night.

“To Val,” he echoes, and takes a sip. It’s a good sign, he thinks. Second to last show of the tour, old friends appearing, the stalker halfway to identified. He wants to celebrate. He does. But… “Let me call Loki up.”

“Is that your man in black?” Val asks. “I saw him on my way up. Kind of intense.” The smirk on her face says she doesn’t mind, and Thor has to laugh.

“He is. Would you like an introduction?”

“I would.”

“Fine—but fair warning—” He’s interrupted by a knock. The peephole says it’s Loki, and he flings the door open.

“Not even asking who it is,” Loki says. “Do you care about your safety at all?”

“I saw that greasy hair and knew I was safe,” Thor shoots back.

“Hm,” Valkyrie says from behind him. And Thor can’t help it: he laughs. A good sign. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh she's petite (just like tessa t). only a few more to go ganggg


	8. Chapter 8

The Phoenix show is big. It’s massive. It’s—it’s stadium-large, and Thor, who watches Valkyrie’s set from the wings, his guitar strung across his body and his earpiece in, cannot believe this is his life. The lighting crew has gone over and beyond for Val, and she flashes in greens and pinks as she thrashes across the stage, her voice winding higher and higher, the bass below it so rich he can feel it in his teeth.

When she calls him and his band on, he can’t help but run up and kiss her. Just on the cheek, but the crowd goes berserk. He can’t blame them—who wouldn’t be in love with her, after this? Her hair’s in braids but the baby hairs around her scalp have begun to curl away from her skin with the sweat that’s beading across her face. She’s beaming, all teeth.

Thor says, “My _god_,” and forgets, for a second, that he’s miked. Val laughs.

“Your turn.”

“What an incredible—right?” He turns to the audience, who’s all to ready give what he’s asking for. “How incredible was that?” Val punches him in the arm. “Ow. Sing the first one with me?”

She pulls her mic away from her mouth for a moment. “Which one is it?”

“End of the World.”

“I’m only good for the chorus, I think,” she says quickly. “I can tag in with harmonies if I’ve got them.”

“Hell yeah,” Thor says, and lets his fingers find the frets. He doesn’t remember much after the first few chords—just how good all the rest of it feels, and the way they sound together.

* * *

Afterwards, they drink. It feels well worth it. The dressing rooms here are huge; Thor has his own, set a little ways away from the main green room, but everyone can fit in there, on a selection of old couches that haven’t lost any of their plush interiors, even though the colors are faded, almost-green and almost-red and almost-blue. Someone’s brought in beer and the technical crew are all in there with them, the ones that Thor knows, who run light and sound and instrument maintenance, and the ones he doesn’t, who he assumes are mostly along for the ride. Thor’s sat by Sif on one side and Heimdall on his other, though both are talking to other people. He has a beer in his hand and the thrill of a fucking _excellent _show in his blood, and he doesn’t care about anything right now. All he’s feeling is good, and that’s novel enough that he wants to sit in it for a minute. And then he wants to tell Loki about it, so he looks for him—he’s not keen enough that he wants to stand up, but he knows he can’t be far, so he cranes back over the almost-green couch to search him out. He finds him against one green wall, and he’s expecting Loki to still be as grim-faced as he was last night, but he isn’t. He’s laughing, easy. His jacket is off. He looks relaxed. And Thor wants to believe that he’s gotten something from their show, too, but he knows better.

Knows that a good part of Loki’s good cheer has to do with the fact that he’s half a room away from Thor, and is instead very, very close to Valkyrie.

Valkyrie, who has one hand planted on the wall behind Loki, bracketing half of his body like a closing parenthesis. When she laughs, she places her hand against Loki’s chest, slowly, almost finger-by-finger. Drags it down his chest. Thor watches Loki catch that hand, but he doesn’t push it away, doesn’t tell her he’s not interested. He holds it there, and bends his face closer.

Thor should look away. He knows he should look away. This is creepy. It’s intrusive, in a weird way that he doesn’t want to look at. But he watches Loki bite his lip and look down at Val’s hand. He watches Val step closer. He watches the way they almost fold in on each other, and wants to blame alcohol, but Val doesn’t drink on the road, and Loki’s holding a bottle of water. He wants to pretend that the way Loki drapes his arm around her back, resting at the small of it, just over her backside, means that she’s tipsy and he’s caught her from falling, but he’s playing with the ends of her braids and his eyes are on her mouth.

“Hey,” someone says, and Thor jumps, entirely caught out. He’s alone on the couch but for a tall, pale red-head. Sif’s wandered off, as has Heimdall. Someone’s turned the music up. It’s a real party, now. Thor’s out of beer.

“Hi,” he says, a little late. “Uh—I’m Thor.”

“I know,” she says, and give him an odd smile. “I don’t think anyone here doesn’t know who you are. It was a good show.”

“It was a great show,” Thor says, and he’s trying to be charming, maybe. He doesn’t know. His mind is still in that far corner. He wonders if they’ve left together. He didn’t think Loki did that. Girls.

“Cocky,” the girl says.

“Nah,” Thor says. “Val—Valkyrie, she’s… playing with her brought out the best in us.”

“Are you two…”

“No,” he says shortly.

“Sorry,” the girl says, and raises both her hands. “Thought it would be polite to make sure.” And then scoots closer.

Now Thor knows what this is. There’s a comfort in that, really. He can deal with people wanting to sleep with him. He’s not interested, and he knows how to say it, usually, in a way that leaves both parties’ confidence intact. She’s not his type, anyway, even though at the moment, he can’t remember what his type is. Against his will, his head turns to the wall. Loki and Val are both gone.

“I don’t hook up with fans,” he says, which is not what he means to say. And then, to soften it, too late: “Sorry.”

But all the girl does is snort. She combs her hair back with her long, thin fingers. When they catch, she grimaces. All the same, it’s a good move—it elongates her neck, and when she sweeps her lashes down, it’s… well. Thor looks away. She notices.

“I’m not a groupie,” she says. “I’m a roadie.”

“Oh,” Thor says, and thinks, _shit_. “I didn’t know—”

“And I’m not trying to sleep with you.”

“That’s, uh. Good. Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“I’m trying to sleep with him.” She points behind him. Thor turns around to see Hogun balancing a series of tree nuts on the end of his nose, cheered on by Fandral, Volstagg, and, surprisingly, Heimdall. “He doesn’t like me much.”

“Then why?”

“The challenge,” she says. Technically, Thor knows she’s smiling. But there’s something about the way she sets her teeth against each other that feels—odd. Like she’s trying to prove that she can.

“Good luck,” Thor says, and she leans closer to him. Her blouse dips forward in the front. He keeps his eyes averted.

“I don’t get it,” she says, and this smile, he can tell, is natural. It looks uniquely cruel. Still, he waits to see what she might say.

“Excuse me.” Loki stands in front of the couch, his hands clasped behind him. Though the jacket is gone, his shirt is still looks perfectly pressed. Thor wonders, hazily, if that makes it hard to fight people—if necessary, of course. If he has to worry about those razor-straight lines. He wonders how Val managed not to muss them up. “I’m afraid I’ll need to take Thor away for a moment.”

“Be my guest,” she says, and plants her hand on Thor’s chest. For a moment, he panics. Only long enough to notice that she’s using him to push her way to standing, to stalk off towards where the boys are making fools of themselves. Hogun is up to twelve.

“I didn’t mean to bust up the party,” Loki says tightly.

“I appreciated the rescue,” Thor says. Loki relaxes, slightly. At least, he lets his arms fall to his sides. Thor leans forward, ready to say something else to relax him. To see if he can. But Loki takes a deep breath before he can.

“There’s something you should see.”

* * *

MY DARLING BOYS-

ARE YOU GETTING NERVOUS?

SOON THE CLUES WILL RUN OUT. WILL YOU FIND ME?

WILL I FIND YOU? CAN’T WAIT TIL HOME SWEET HOME XX

“Oh,” is all Thor can say.

There’s something very rock’n’roll about it, is the thing. His dressing room is trashed—clothes thrown off their hangers, stools tossed over, water spilled all over the floor, glasses on their sides. And the letter is writ large across the mirror, in what looks like black nail varnish. It’s new enough that it’s smeared a little at the edges, like whoever wrote it might be left-handed and got a little overzealous about it, but it’s dry enough that it’ll be a pain to remove. And if they want to keep this to themselves, they’ll have to remove it.

“Fandral might have some remover,” Thor says. “Sif doesn’t really—what?”

“That’s all you have to say about this?”

“I don’t know what else you’d want me to say.”

“You don’t seem at all concerned for your safety,” Loki says tightly. “And that makes you a fool.”

“Me.” Thor wants to laugh. “You’re the one who was off making out with Val instead of _doing your job_.”

“I didn’t—” Loki takes a breath. It does nothing for him. He holds all his tension in his lips, Thor’s noticed. They’re no more than white lines. His nostrils flare with the effort of keeping himself quiet. “I did not,” he says, a little emphatically, “_make out_ with Valkyrie.”

“Why not? You looked interested enough.”

“Because, as you so delicately put it, I was doing my _job_. Not that you would notice, lost as you were with the girl in the wig.”

“Wig?”

“Surely you didn’t think that was her natural hair color? I thought you’d at least be able to recognize the real thing, as much time as you’ve spent with Volstagg.”

“That’s why I didn’t recognize her.” Thor brushes some clothes away and takes a seat. If they’re not treating this like a crime scene, he doesn’t know why he shouldn’t at least get comfortable, physically speaking. He’s under no illusions that he’ll be otherwise comfortable with Loki for the foreseeable future. “She said she’s in the road crew, but I couldn’t place her. Thought she’d snuck backstage.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Helen, or something, I think,” Thor says, ignoring him. “Some sort of instrument specialist.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Loki says. But he doesn’t leave.

“Good,” Thor says. “Then you can make it up with Val. She seemed into you. I didn’t know you’d go for someone like that, but to each their own.”

“To each—Jesus Christ. Are you interested in her? Is that what this is?”

“No,” Thor says, and he knows he sounds petulant, knows that crossing his arms tight across his chest isn’t going to help, but he gets a little thrill anyways at how Loki’s eyes find the curve of his biceps before looking at the ceiling. “You can do what you want. I just thought you were gay.”

“You could make it sound less like an insult,” Loki says flatly.

“That wasn’t,” Thor says, and stops. “That’s not what I meant, and you know that. I only meant,” he says, and has to stop again. Loki has his hands on his hips, and as Thor watches, he rakes a hand through his hair. It’s not as graceful as Helen did it. It’s not graceful at all. He has a little darkness under his eyes, unhidden bags, and his hair doesn’t settle nicely after it, just bunches a little bit around his high forehead. But Thor could look at him for days. “I didn’t think she was your type,” he says finally, and Loki looks to the mirrors, refusing to meet his eye. “I thought I was.”

“She’s very attractive,” Loki says.

“I know.”

“Sexuality is a spectrum.”

“I know that, too.”

“If she’d asked me to leave with her, I would’ve gone. If I wasn’t on the clock.”

And then Thor has to look away. “Fine.” Still, peripheral vision or proprioception, Thor can tell when Loki turns to face him. 

“Thor.”

“I said fine,” Thor says, and stands up. He goes for his phone; they’ll need a picture of the message, at least. And he’ll need to message Fandral for the remover—probably send a message to the group chat so he doesn’t have to explain this more than once. “I’m being silly. I’m drunk.” As if to prove his point, he staggers to his feet and takes one swinging step forward to frame the photo. 

“You’re not. You’re just a cliché.”

He wasn’t expecting that, and when he looks at Loki, his phone poised for the picture, he’s several steps closer to Thor than he expects him to be. His first reaction is to step back. He conquers that. Stays still. Let’s Loki take another step.

“It’s proximity,” Loki says, like he's willing it to be true. “That’s all. You’ve gotten used to me, in a high-pressure situation.” 

“I haven’t been as worried as you and Heimdall,” Thor says quietly. It feels like he needs to be. Loki is so close that he can see the blood rush back to his lips when he opens his mouth. How pink they flush.

“Stop that,” Loki says.

“It’s psychological, right? I don’t know why…” Loki runs his tongue over his bottom lip. Thor mirrors the action by accident. He knows he's forgetting something, forgetting himself. He's forgetting why he should care. 

“Why what?” Loki asks, and his eyes at this exact moment are so wide that Thor sees him as a teenager, so reluctant to accept his friendship, so ready for rejection, desperate in a way that Thor wants to help, that Thor wants to save him from. And then Thor blinks and they’re adults instead, Loki’s eyes focused on his mouth, his breath coming slowly. All dressed in black, all straight lines, ready to be mussed up. 

Thor doesn’t really hear his phone fall. He doesn’t really hear anything, after their lips touch. Only Loki’s shortness of breath, the noise he makes when Thor presses him against the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tonally thor is hozier and val is nao and that's just who i am babey//thank you all for reading! two more shows on tour and so probably 2-4 more chapters depending on size thanks for yer patience.


End file.
